Best non-MPEG2 format for MVP playback?

[bgowland]

I'd like to make a start on converting my VHS collection to something digital. Some of this I'll probably burn to DVD but there are quite a lot of hours of stuff that I want 'on tap' to watch through my TV/MVP setup. MPEG-2 is obviously nice and stable on the MVP but BIG file size etc.

So I'm interested in any MVP users' experiences of other formats and the MVP. Ideally I want the best filesize reduction but to retain the best possible picture/sound quality and also for playback to be stable (no hiccups/jerks, no intermittent loss of video/audio sync., being able to FF/RW properley etc.).

Any suggestions/experiences gratefully received.

EDIT: I meant to say I'll be recording originally to MPEG-2 using the s-vid input of my PVR350 and then manually transcoding.

Cheers,
Brian

[HtV]

Just my 2 cents:
If you don't use mpg than you will always have to transcode, so ff and skip will be troublesome. Qualitywise its weard I think to record to mpeg2, then transcode to xvid/divx/h264/etc/etc, then for playback transcode back to mpeg2.

[psycik]

I actually found the best, and most reliable on the MVP to be an SVCD compliant MPeg2 (not what you wanted I know). I found anything else (non standard MPEG1 and VCD compliant) I could try and skip through it and the audio would move the but the video would free at the point of skipping.

[bgowland]

Just my 2 cents:
If you don't use mpg than you will always have to transcode, so ff and skip will be troublesome. Qualitywise its weard I think to record to mpeg2, then transcode to xvid/divx/h264/etc/etc, then for playback transcode back to mpeg2.

OK - I hear that.

The problem is that the only way I have to record from VHS is going to result in MPEG-2 format. With the stuff I want to keep 'on tap' at the moment I'd need to dedicate a whole 250-300GB HDD to it and that's not really practical.

I guess I probably wouldn't need to FF/RW/Skip that often - my main concern is general stability of playback and as small a file size as possible.

I actually found the best, and most reliable on the MVP to be an SVCD compliant MPeg2 (not what you wanted I know).

Well I don't mind it being MPEG-2 of some sort if the file size was a reasonable amount smaller. I don't do much transcoding in general but I've done a couple of things to SVCD - I can't remember if the file compression is that much though.

Cheers,
Brian

[colin]

If you have the time and patience start reading over at http://doom9.org/. Record you VHS at high quality, then look at frameserving and filtering to re-encode to mpg2. You can get some great results and squeeze your mpg file size as well.

Cheers,

[bgowland]

If you have the time and patience...

I have plenty of patience - it's the time I have trouble finding.

Thanks - I'll try and take a look later.

Cheers,
Brian